Is the GOP Tax Bill a Smuggler's Charter?

[Stavros]

It is sometimes hard if not possible on this side of the Atlantic to understand how the Congress manages to pass laws. A law goes from the House to the Senate, I get that, but in the latest version of the House of Representatives Bill as modified by the Senate I read that parts of it were handwritten at the last moment, sometimes legal provisions scribbled in the margins of the printed section, and the whole thing is at least 500 pages long! I thought the aim was to simplify the tax code. And after all that, there will be a final version before it goes to the White House for the President's approval.

What also puzzles me about the process is the way in which issues not related to tax can be smuggled into the Bill, with the consequence that the law of the USA will have to be re-written.

Assuming it has passed the vote on this latest version and is in the Bill that becomes law, there is a provision that re-defines a Person in law through a provision known as '529 Plans' giving rise to this:

At issue is a somewhat obscure proposal regarding beneficiaries to what are termed “529 plans” (also known as qualified tuition programs), which are savings funds for college tuition. The new tax bills would make it explicitly legal to list an “in-utero” unborn child as a beneficiary to such saving funds. A description of the change in the Senate Bill describes the proposal:

The proposal specifies that nothing in Code section 529 shall prevent an unborn child from qualifying as a designated beneficiary. For these purposes, an unborn child means a child in utero, and the term child in utero means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.
https://www.snopes.com/gop-tax-bill-...d-legislation/

But if this does become law, it will conflict with the current definition of a person-
U.S. Code › Title 1 › Chapter 1 › § 8
(a) In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual”, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.
(b) As used in this section, the term “born alive”, with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from his or her mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after such expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.
(c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being “born alive” as defined in this section.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/1/8

So it would appear that a Bill to reform and amend the tax code is not only concerned with a completely different issue, namely abortion, but in its attempt to make abortion hard to obtain, it has also re-defined a person in law, I wonder how many US citizens think this is the appropriate way in which to deal with amendments to the law?

And surely, coming next, is a law making it illegal for an unmarried man to ejaculate, and for a married man to ejaculate unless he is ejaculating while penetrating a woman -and only a woman? Sperm is a crucial component of life, so why begin the legal definition of a person with the fetus when it cannot exist without a man's sperm, and 'spillage' or 'wastage' of that sperm is in effect part of the process of abortion and the denial of life.

Maybe it will be in the next version of the tax code...?

[flabbybody]

They love putting unrelated shit into future laws. Great American tradition.
you've clearly put more thought into this legislation than all 52 Republican senators combined (one of them actually voted No).
and how much effort do you think Trump expended studying the law he will claim sole credit for?
many of us middle income New Yorkers will be totally fucked by the elimination of deductions on state income and property taxes. This tax law almost makes their repeal and replace look benevolent.

[buttslinger]

The way I understand it is the Republicans have to come up with a bill that pours money to the rich, that's the easy part,....then they have to find various public welfare programs to steal the money from to pay for it. You might notice that tax breaks for the middle class drop off in a couple years, while the corporate tax sweetheart deals go on for eternity.
I think big corporations have been sitting on their money playing a game of chicken with Obama for eight years, well, they won again, you have to wonder when Trump's base is going to catch on they've just been screwed.
Ordinarily, a President with this economy should have approval numbers in the stratosphere.
It's mildly amusing that the same day Trump's ultimate wet dream started to cum true, is the same day his ultimate fall began. Life is funny like that.
Who's going to clean up this mess?

[Stavros]

It's mildly amusing that the same day Trump's ultimate wet dream started to cum true, is the same day his ultimate fall began. Life is funny like that.
Who's going to clean up this mess?

When the Party of God makes it illegal for you to 'cum' there will be no mess. Now be a good boy, and when you get those nasty thoughts, do something else with your hands...

[broncofan]

Initially I thought this bill repealed the estate tax. Now I am seeing that it doubled the exemption for the estate tax. The estate tax exemption is 5.49 million dollars for individuals and 10.98 million for couples. It's also inflation adjusted so it would have continued to rise with inflation but that's apparently not good enough. That means that before any tax is levied, 10.98 million dollars could be passed to the next generation. Once the exemption amount was reached, the rest of the estate would be taxed at 40%.

By doubling the exemption, the Trump administration is helping those families hardest hit by economic slumps, those single folks with a net worth between 5.49 million and 10.98 million dollars. He also helps those couples barely scraping by who would otherwise be hit with a massive DEATH TAX when their net worth sits between 10.98 and 21.96 million dollars.

I realize the sarcasm falls flat, but can you imagine anything less worthwhile than saving a couple with a net worth of say 15 million dollars from paying a 40% tax on 4.02 million dollars (the amount that exceeds the exemption amount for couples) before being passed to the next generation? Think of what pays for this; the repeal of state and local tax exemptions etc.....there really is no excuse at all for this move and if we were to go through the provisions I am sure they get even worse but this is one that was on my radar. Awful.

[Stavros]

I realize the sarcasm falls flat, but can you imagine anything less worthwhile than saving a couple with a net worth of say 15 million dollars from paying a 40% tax on 4.02 million dollars (the amount that exceeds the exemption amount for couples) before being passed to the next generation? Think of what pays for this; the repeal of state and local tax exemptions etc.....there really is no excuse at all for this move and if we were to go through the provisions I am sure they get even worse but this is one that was on my radar. Awful.

Broncofan, dude, you need to get with the program. The GOP tax bill offers you a range of incentives to get out there in the market and make a million a day, take the risks with your capital to move out of your safe and sedate Middle Class comfort blanket, embrace the hurly-burly of those market opportunities and become a billionaire. Then you can have the benefits that reward risk and vision. And you can buy or lease your own private jet. No more flying coach from New York to LA, when the people who do can subsidize your Cessna.

• The private jet lobby spent $56 million lobbying over the past ten years to save more than $1 billion in annual taxes they avoid due to preferential tax treatment.
• The tax cut package under consideration in the Senate maintains and expands the private jet tax carve-out, while the Republican budget plan increases fees on commercial airline passengers.
• Private jets contribute less than one tenth of the resources they use from the Federal Aviation Administration Trust Fund. Commercial airline passengers heavily subsidize private jet passengers.
• Commercial jets are taxed at up to 40 times the rate of private jets on the exact same route despite identical needs in terms of transportation infrastructure.
• Private jets threaten our national security as owners can obscure their identity and passengers face zero security screening.
• A single private jet trip burns more greenhouse gases than the average American does in a whole year.
http://www.ips-dc.org/report-high-flyers-2017/

[Stavros]

For the record, the proposal in the version of the tax bill written in the House of Representatives to include the term 'fetal personhood' into the 529 clauses of the tax bill was deleted by the Senate.

https://rewire.news/article/2017/12/...-tax-overhaul/

[sukumvit boy]

And the bastards managed to find a way to deliver a potentially fatal kidney punch to 'Obama Care'.
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/04/op...obamacare.html

[buttslinger]

Unlike many rabid Democrats, I am not totally anti-Republican, and I think there is a small chance that the economy taking off could be the surge that brings World Money to the USA, good for us, bad for them.
Of course the RISK involved is all on the middle class, the wealthy are guaranteed to stay wealthy. Obama had to dip into the National Debt to spur the economy, but he put it not with the banks and corporations and Wall St, he directed it more toward the middle class. My $12,750 Kash-for-Klunkers Honda Civic netted me $17,750 when some kid dressed only in swim trunks totaled it.
Thanks Obama!
I'd be happy to doubling my taxes if it paid off the National Debt, I wouldn't starve,
I'm part of the Reason Amazon.com and Microsoft are so huge, I wish I was rich,
but you know what Jesus said
"I have seen the Future of all Mankind, but without Charity, it means nothing"
Actually I think that's another one I dreamed up, I can't find it on google.

My Pop lucked into two great stock tips in his life, One was from the Nazi Rocket genius Werner Von Braun, who he met at Redstone during Army Reserve. He told my Pop they were switching from liquid to solid rocket fuel, and the only place that made it was some little business in Washington State. My Dad had no money, but one of my Uncles made a killing.
My Dad was one of the first "guinea pigs" on the Kidney Machine, Dialysis, so he had Million Dollar Doctors hovering around him all the time. It paid off when he overheard them saying they were going to go with a new dialysis machine nationwide that a small company somewhere dreamed up. We got a whole hose full of new furniture on that one!!
Being Super-rich would intoxicate anyone. Even Nancy Pelosi has made a small fortune from her contacts in The House.
One way to figure out if a guy is ripping you off is to catch him in a lie. That should give anyone pause.....


website for uploading photos

[dirkmcgee]

^The idea that Obama only told 18 lies during his entire Presidency is fucking hilarious.

Hm. Why don't people trust mainstream media again?